


Consequences

by ktbl



Series: Paper Rings [3]
Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Comic: Mortal Kombat X, Consequences, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Game: Mortal Kombat X, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Responsibility, Romance, Slice of Life, Sonya Blade Is Bad At Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktbl/pseuds/ktbl
Summary: The phrase “blonde bombshell” has been bandied about for decades, and Johnny’s used it to describe more than one woman in his life. Sonya Blade has managed to become the living embodiment of it at this moment, sitting on his couch with her red-lacquered fingers pressed to his lips. He heard what she said, but it just doesn’t register.“I’m pregnant,” she repeats when he doesn’t respond, his mind still trying to parse the words she’s just uttered. It’s a weekday morning, and it’s just too early for this. It’s not even noon yet. He hasn’t seen her for almost four excessively long months. Cold shoulder for two weeks was bad, three months has been hell, but he’s been determined not to break first.To top it all off, he isn’t even wearing pants.--So this was supposed to be a oneshot. It hit over 8k words and I said it was time to become a chaptered fic. First chapter is SFW, the rest aren't.
Relationships: Sonya Blade/Johnny Cage
Series: Paper Rings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727047
Comments: 15
Kudos: 34





	1. Bombshells

The phrase “blonde bombshell” has been bandied about for decades, and Johnny’s used it to describe more than one woman in his life. Sonya Blade has managed to become the living embodiment of it at this moment, sitting on his couch with her red-lacquered fingers pressed to his lips. He heard what she said, but it just doesn’t register.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeats when he doesn’t respond, his mind still trying to parse the words she’s just uttered. It’s a weekday morning, and it’s just too early for this. It’s not even _noon_ yet. He hasn’t seen her for almost four excessively long months. Cold shoulder for two weeks was bad, three months has been hell, but he’s been determined not to break first.

To top it all off, he isn’t even wearing pants.

“So why are you telling me?” He’s angry - why has she come here, to flaunt some pregnancy, screwing some other guy, in his face? Has he - it crosses his mind like a blow to the back of the head. Is he just a good friend she fucks, and now that she’s knocked up she needs to talk to someone? Just his goddamned luck.

“You fucking idiot.” She glares at him, furious and beautiful. It hits him all at once, and he feels the bottom of his stomach drop out. His vision goes blurry at the edges. He’s thankful he’s sitting down. “Because _it’s yours._ ”

“You’re…” Johnny is slack-jawed. She reaches into the pocket of her army green hoodie, fishing out a small printout and thrusting it at him. He takes it on autopilot and holds it carefully in his hands, still lost for words. He’s holding a live grenade, and any movement might set it off. Black and white and a little fuzzy except for the circle on it, but there have been enough of these from his sister or his friends or in a film that he knows what he’s staring at. He looks at the top, name and doctor’s information and date, estimated due date… He does some mental math, and it all lines up. That night, when she came to LA, when they had their date. “It can’t be… I had a… You don’t look pregnant,” he says dumbly, and she crosses her arms, glaring at him again.

That means she was pregnant those nights in her apartment, pregnant when she took down Quan Chi. She fucking _owned_ those revenants, pregnant. He’s so proud and in love and terrified all at once he thinks his heart might burst.

“Well, I’m about three months along, and it’s yours because you’re the only one I’ve fucked in longer than I want to admit, and I’m here because I want to know what you want to do. I know what I want to do, but - I figured I owed you the courtesy of knowing you knocked me up.”

“Jesus, Sonya.” He looks at his hands, realizing they are trembling ever so slightly, and sets the ultrasound image down on the table. “First, I gotta have words with the surgeon that supposedly-“

“The Jinsei chamber. It has healing properties, remember? It’s indiscriminate with who it heals, and what injuries it heals.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. So you’re gonna want to get _that_ done again. Before you do _this_ to someone else.” She snaps the words off, staccato like gunfire.

“Not gonna happen. There’s no someone else.” He picks up the picture of his - their - baby again, looks at it, looks at her and the flat plane of her stomach, puts it down again. Maybe there’s some rounding there, or maybe it’s just the way her shirt is rumpled, and the looseness of the hoodie and pants. “I mean… I believe you that it’s mine, so, uh… I guess the first thing is, what do you want to do? I mean, it’s… this is you, and I know your career means a lot to you…” He trails off, all glibness gone. He can’t decide what he wants - the idea of being a father is utterly terrifying. Being responsible for another person, forming another human’s identity, the long sleepless nights and scraped knees and martial arts classes and _dating_ and it makes his stomach twist.

But it’s half of Sonya, too, and he’ll do anything for a little piece of her. He’s let her lead everything, and maybe that’s why she’s been off the grid for almost four months. Pregnant. Knocked up, with his kid. Incontrovertible proof that he got under all that armor at least once. “You wanna keep it, I’m in it for the long haul. Talk to my lawyer, get everything drawn up - college fund, trust fund, everything. You want to do something else, I mean, I’ll… well. I’ll back you with whatever you want to do. I’m footing the bill for everything, whatever you decide. Best doctors, hospitals, everything.”

“Smart answer, but I don’t need your charity.” She presses her lips together in a thin line. “But what do you want? You had a vasectomy because you didn’t want kids. I didn’t come here to drag you to court. Nothing like that. Your position was pretty clear, but it didn’t work that way. And that’s my fault, not yours. I should have insisted on backup, and I didn’t. So - what do you want?”

“I remember what you said, when you took down Quan Chi and I was bleeding out on the floor.” Her eyes widen slightly. “I’m all in, Sonya. I want this kid, with you. If I’m gonna have a kid, there’s not a single person on the planet I’d rather do it with.” He reaches a hand out towards her. “So, LTC, what’s your plan?”

“I… I want to keep it. I wanted to - even if you didn’t. Now that Shinnok’s done, that Quan Chi is… mostly dealt with. We’re mostly safe, as safe as we can be. If I’m gonna have a kid…” she trails off and shrugs. “I can think of worse people to contribute genes.”

“I think I’m flattered.” He drops his hand, and she pokes him in the knee with one foot.

“Go put on some pants and we can talk.”

“Do I have to?” He exaggerates the whine, just to see the annoyed smile light across her face. She pokes him again, harder. “Fine. Don’t go anywhere.” He vanishes into his bedroom and panics quietly for a minute, making an Edvard Munch-meets-Home-Alone scream face but not a sound. _Pregnant. Baby. I’m gonna be a dad. Sonya fucking Blade is pregnant with my kid._ _Our kid._ He clenches a fist and exhales in a hard puff as he pulls on underwear and pants, the first things to come to hand. He debates a shirt but thinks better of it - it’s his condo, and he’s not cold, and if she didn’t like how he looked she wouldn’t have taken him to bed three times.

He comes back out a little more collected, but not much. She’s swept the beer bottles off his table and is eyeing the state of his sink with an expression he’s usually seen reserved for extras who met camera eye line.

His baby mama is not impressed.

“I thought I told you not to move.”

“I couldn’t see the table for the beer bottles, I went to go put them in the recycling, then I wanted a glass of water, and then I saw the sink…” she trails off. “This is a mess. How can you live like this?”

“What, you want it shipshape and Bristol fashion?”

“That’s the Navy, idiot. Am I Navy?”

“No, you are Army. Actually, you’re leggy, but-“ He ducks a swing he’s not sure is joking or not, catching her fist in his hand. “Chill, Sonya. You want a drink?”

“I don’t think I can exactly do shots of rum,” she says acidly. “Just water. From a clean glass.”

“I told you not to go anywhere.”

“I didn’t think you meant not even your _kitchen_ ,” she snaps, and reclaims the couch, grabbing a pillow and holding it in her lap like a shield against the mess of his kitchen. He fills a glass with water and ice for her, and then pours himself a few fingers of white rum and downs it before refilling with water. And another finger of rum, to be on the safe side. He walks back over, handing the glass with ice to her, and sits down on the couch a little closer to her. For all that they know each other intimately, there’s an awkward sort of boundary. There’s line he’s afraid to cross, but he has no idea where the line’s been drawn.

“So, I haven’t heard anything about Jax in a while. Since the note. How’s he doing?”

“Better. They got him some new arms - not Quan Chi’s - and he’s working on his own. He literally bought a farm,” she adds, mouth relaxing into a smile. “Got himself a girlfriend, too. She’s an engineer or something. They met in one of his… meetings.” She trails off, and pulls out her phone. “We’ve gone out for lunch a couple of times. I like her a lot.”

“Got a picture?”

“Yeah.” She fusses on her phone, and shifts a little closer to him, and hands the phone over. There’s a photo of a farmhouse, a fantastically wrecked barn straight out of Steinbeck with a battered tractor. Another photo, Sonya covered in grease and dirt looking up from the tractor hood with sheer satisfaction. A photo of Jax and a very attractive black woman, her hair in two braids down the back of her head. She looks good, and happy. There’s a look on Jax’s face that might be happiness, too. Johnny has, admittedly, not had much experience with Jax and that expression.

“They look happy.”

“Trust me, I think Jax’s ready to pop the question already.” Sonya rolls her eyes and takes her phone back, sliding through more pictures too fast for him to follow. She doesn’t seem to find what she’s after so she pockets it. “Man is head-over-heels for her, and I can’t blame him. She’s good for him. He’s… adjusting, slowly. It’s a lot to get your head around.” She rubs at the back of her own, letting out her ponytail and working one hand against her scalp. “So we’ve been commiserating.”

“Am I the last one to know?”

The pause goes on, a little too long for comfort. “Not the last,” she says finally. “He was the first to know.” Johnny’s indignation must be clear, because she laughs a bit, and pushes at him. “He’s my best friend, Johnny. Of course I’m going to tell him. How else do I explain why I’m puking my guts out every morning and I don’t care how good his barbecue is, the idea of eating meat makes me sick? He’s not stupid.” She snorts. “No, he knew almost as soon as I did, when they dropped my ass to desk duty. Then I talked with my mom. And then Fujin-“

“Wait, what the fuck. You talked to _Fujin_ first? Before me?”

“I needed to ask him,” she says blandly, “about the Jinsei chamber. Since stuff lined up a little too neatly. If it would have - affected things.”

“Jesus, I really was the last to know.”

“What would you have had me do? Hi, Johnny, just peed on a stick and guess what, you’re a dad?”

“Okay,” he admits, “maybe that wouldn’t have gone over so well. But Quan Chi, and-“

“Don’t you start.” She pokes him in the chest. “I already got that shit from Jax, and Vera when _she_ found out, and my CO, and it was-“ she snaps her mouth shut. “Only got my ass out of it by playing a card I don’t like to play.”

“Not your mother?”

“She doesn’t know the details.” Sonya sighs, and he slings an arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. “I don’t share them, she doesn’t ask. She’s happier that way. Don’t blame her.”

“Well, I’d probably be panicking every time if I knew what you did, too. Hell, I know what you do, and I worry.” She rolls her eyes and relaxes ever so slightly into him. He pulls her onto his lap, and she rests her head on his shoulder. One of his hands slides along her shoulder and arm and settles on her tee shirt, over her stomach. “So, this is it, huh?”

“Agony, frustration, and the enamel on my teeth being shot from constantly puking up everything? Yeah. Your fault.”

“I guess it’s a good reason for locking me out for four months.”

“I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kill you or not, or how I wanted to tell you, or if I wanted to. If I was just going to make my decision and - whatever.”

“So you’re keeping it,” he says carefully, trying to see if he can feel any change in the muscle of her abdomen. “And I’m going to get in to my lawyer tomorrow and make sure I get everything drawn up. Trust fund, college fund, share of the royalties and everything from all my stuff, shunted over to Blade-Cage, and your name-“

“Excuse me?” She pulls back and her head shot up, almost fast enough to knock into his jaw.

“What, you want Cage-Blade? I can do that. Hyphens either way, it’s fine, I just - my name,” he says almost stupidly, “and your name, and-“

“Johnny, stop running your mouth. You get no say in naming this kid,” she says mildly. “With my luck you’d pick something horrendous. Like, what was that actor? Red Buttons?”

“Homage to a fine actor? We could do that.”

“No, oh hell no,” she laughs, and he clasps her against him. “No. Normal names. Normal, everyday, easy, simple names. Nothing ridiculous. Nothing… Hollywood.”

“We’ve got a few months to figure it out. You know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”

“No,” she says, and her voice is distant. She shakes her head a moment. “Not sure I want to, really. Why, do you?”

“Kinda,” he admits. “But I’m not going to rush it. We’ve got some stuff to figure out first. What’s the likelihood of you staying the night? Or the weekend? Kinda… figure maybe we should talk some of this through. And celebrate.”

“I remember what happened the last time we celebrated.” Her eyes narrow and she looks down, pointedly. He wiggles her fingers against her belly. “But I suppose I can’t exactly get more pregnant.”

“We could try.” He grins down her. “But seriously, babe… Thanks.”

“For what?” She turns her face, tucks it into the side of his neck, and he sticks his hands in her hoodie’s pockets. He kicks his feet up on the table and she stretches her long legs out over the couch sideways. He tries to think of how to phrase everything bubbling in his mind, how to pull it out and explain it to her without sounding like an idiot.

“Telling me. Not giving me an ultimatum. Trusting me enough. Not calling me screaming about how I fucked up your life.”

“I considered it. Considered it a lot, mostly when I was puking my brains out and couldn’t keep anything down. But we both made choices that night, and I’d be an asshole and a hypocrite to totally blame you. Eighty-twenty.”

“Whoa, what the hell? Eighty-twenty?”

“Well, you always want to headline, and want more of the credit, right?”

He laughs, and shakes his head. “You know me too well. So, is that a yes that you’ll stick around - at least tonight? I mean… c’mon. What’s the likelihood of you moving in down here?”

“What, you want me to ride a desk?”

“Like you to ride other things, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“You’ve got a one-track mind.” She sounds exasperated. “I’m off ops, for now,” she says. “It’s just physical training and paperwork and administrative bullshit. It would be pulling a lot of strings, and I can’t promise that,” she adds, narrowing her eyes, “but I could maybe see about coming down here a little more often.”

“I want you to move in,” he repeats, surprised by how strongly he feels about it. “I’m willing to start with a couple of times a week - long weekends or whatever - but I don’t want you having to do this solo. I’m in this too. It’s not fair for me to ask you spend all your time solo. I’m - I mean, this place is pretty much paid for, maybe we could see about finding some place up by your base. I can always stay here if I have filming, or use it for weekend getaways if we want to.”

She sits quietly and thinks while he just keeps his hands tucked in her pockets, feeling the reassuring weight of her. “I appreciate the idea, I really do. I just - I haven’t had a roommate for a very, very long time. And we’re talking a lot more than that.” She pauses, and lets out a startled laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I think this is the first time - maybe the second - that I’m grateful my father’s not around for something.”

“Why?” Johnny blinks and he realizes the implications. “Oh shit.”

“Uh-huh. Texan soldier? He’d’ve had your ass riddled with shotgun pellets right now. You’d be marching your ass down an aisle soon as paperwork allowed.”

That silences him. He’s been meaning to say something to her anyway, and he might as well give it a go. He nudges her off his lap and walks back, reaching unerringly for a bag he’s kept in the corner of his nightstand for the past six months. He comes back a few minutes later, sitting back down beside her. He takes one of her hands, unfolds her fingers, and drops something onto her palm. He meets her eyes, and then steels himself as she looks down at the weathered gold band.

“That was my grandmother’s,” he says. “I’m not - I’m not asking you, now. I’m just saying that it’s an option on the table, if you want it. To prove I’m serious.”

She drops the ring like it burns, and leaps to her feet and is out the door faster than he thought possible.

He finds the ring from where it glints accusingly on the carpet, closing his hand around it carefully. That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to jump for joy, there wouldn’t be declarations of undying love - but he wasn’t expecting Sonya Blade to go into full retreat.

First time for everything.


	2. Fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I had a fantastically terrible weekend, and in my weird way of feeling better, you all get an early post.

Johnny’s shadow falls over her on the beach. She knows it’s him by the fact that he stops just out of fist or kick range. He knows the lengths of her body perfectly; they’ve fought together too long, too closely, to not know those kinds of measurements. She’s not sure she wants to say anything, and he remains quiet, just standing behind her, so she knows she’s not alone. Finally she cracks.

“I was… not expecting this.” She digs her toes into the sand as he sits down carefully beside her. He’s let her settle for fifteen minutes, and she appreciates it. Long enough to not be clingy, short enough that he’s showing he’ll give her space but not abandon her. Still wants her, wants this, enough to figure it out. And if he’s angry, he’s not showing it.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he says, spreading a hand out between them. “Left without even your boots.”

“I expected to come down here, have you deny everything, and throw me out on my ass. Not that.”

“Sonya, why would I ever kick you out?” Johnny looks at her, clearly confused. She sees the wrinkles in his forehead, the slump of his shoulders. “When have I ever backed down? I asked you to move in. Hell, I put other things on the table, too. I’m…”

“You’ve been me, me, me since I met you. The first time I saw you do something selfless was in the Jinsei chamber, with Shinnok. Hell, we fought on the bridge over the Pit on Shang Tsung’s island because I turned you down, right? And now, all this? I don’t know what I was expecting, but this - this wasn’t it.”

“Look, babe, it’s been pretty obvious to everyone but you apparently, for a couple of years now. I love you. Rai-dude says that’s part of what that whole green glow was. Protecting someone I love. So yes, I will move some my old jackets and even some of the belts. I’ll clean out my office-“

“Your man cave?” She snorts, drawing shapes in the sand. She hears the words, and they are terrifying, so she focuses on something, anything, else. That’s an obscenity of the highest degree, that four-letter word. He’s been saying it, and it doesn’t surprise her - not with everything that’s happened between the two of them - but she’d rather go back up against Kitana and Jade than think about her feelings right now. She compartmentalizes them neatly and returns to drawing on the sand.

“My office,” he continues, “for the kiddo’s room. But you’ve got half of everything, if you want it.” He edges his his hand closer to her, leaving a trail in the sand. “Bed, closets, dressers, you name it. We can talk about what you want, what you need, get it all set up.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t expecting this.” She draws her knees up towards her chin, trying to take up less space.

“Maybe we can compromise?” His voice is hopeful, nothing at all like the cocky jackass she met years ago. He’d never have uttered the word compromise. “Start with some long weekends, build up to it. I’ve got some filming coming up anyway for another project, so I won’t be here all the time, so maybe that’ll be easier. You can get… I dunno. Get yourself unpacked and settled in and maybe it’ll be kinda like home, by the time I’m back. Some location work, I think in Vancouver or Toronto or something, not too far.”

“Canada, he says. Not far.”

“Hey, it’s not Hong Kong or Venice or Paris or Croatia, which are places I’ve gone and could go again. Could take you along for some non-military action.” He wiggles his eyebrows and she chokes off a laugh, feeling a little more of the tension ease out of her.

“Dad was stationed in Germany for a couple years, when we were maybe… Five or six? I don’t remember much. By Stuttgart, I think. It might be nice to go back.”

“Always heard the Christmas markets are pretty awesome over there. And the beer and pretzels. And the blo-“ He stops, clamping his lips shut.

“Blondes?”

“Yeah.” He edges sideways slowly, as if she’s a wild animal he doesn’t want to frighten off. “But I’m not on the market, so-“

“Cage, I’m not asking for commitment. You want to play the field, just be honest with me about it, and we’ve got to figure out how to position it with-“

“Do you think I would have put a ring on the table if I wanted to still play the field? Do you even follow social media or TMZ or anything?”

“No.” Her eyes are on the rolling waves, crashing closer to them. “Not exactly important for my line of work.”

“Well, it’s been noted that I have not been sharing my favors as often of late.” She makes another choked laugh and he looks over with exaggerated annoyance. “The rumors are rife. Either my career is a mess and no one wants to be seen with me, that my career is about to take off more and I think I’m too good for everyone. Or that there’s someone around that I’m being secretive about. Trust me, me _not_ going after everything that moves is being noticed.”

“And so which is it?”

“You going to make me spell it out?”

“Maybe,” she says slowly, stretching her legs out a bit. “I didn’t even think about paparazzi. Shit. Can I take this all back?”

“Sweetheart, you’ll knock one of them down and they’ll back off after that. Hell, they might not even get that far. No one will mess with you.” He shifts a little closer, and reaches for her hand, sliding his overs hers slowly. “I meant it, though. I’m not on the market anymore. Haven’t really been for a while now.”

“Pressure much, Cage?”

“What do you want me to do? You show up pregnant, ask what I want to do, I tell you I’ll pay for everything, give you what every girl wants. I’ll turn you into Hollywood royalty, and you book it out of my apartment so fast you nearly scorched the carpet. I love you Sonya. What the hell more do you want from me? Give me a clue here, because I have no idea what kind of responses you’re after. My playbook’s pretty thin on this, and you’re rejecting everything I’m throwing at you. In Hollywood, we shoot for the yes-and, not no-but.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, tucks her head between her knees, and resists the urge to vomit. Her stomach flip-flops vigorously. It’s _not_ the baby. She’s read all the books and papers and manuals she can get her hands on, and they all tell her it’s too early for this to be the baby.

He said it. He said the words again, and she can’t decide if it’s relief or if it’s abject horror, another way the world has pulled the rug out from under her. He really has offered her everything. He’s been far more generous than she expected. She’s been used to predicting him by his dick and his ego. She’s not used to a Johnny with a brain. She takes several steadying breaths. He’s offered a college fund and a trust fund and to cover all the medical bills. He’s also offered to have her move in, to marry her.

Maybe that’s just typical Johnny - all the big, expansive gestures, unable to do anything by halves. At least he didn’t kick her out, at least he didn’t demand a paternity test, which is what she’d expected. He just rolled with it. But - that’s what actors did, wasn’t it? Got told to move a little to the left, say it again with more emphasis, learn a new page of lines overnight. He’s no stranger to change, and he’s rolling with it. Take a minute, adjust, and go.

“I don’t know. I’m not used to having something that doesn’t come with a field manual. I’m given to understand kids definitely don’t.” The admission is hard to make, and he weaves their fingers together and squeezes them.

“Yeah, my sister’s kids are a mess, but-“

“Your sister’s kids?” She turns, puzzled. “You have a sister?”

“Have I never mentioned Rebecca?” He pauses and chuckles. “Becca’s maybe half an hour down the road in bad traffic. Two kids, hellions and they’re great. Not as great as _our_ kid will be,” he says proudly, “but pretty good.”

“Huh.” She presses her lips together, adding that new tidbit to her collection.

“You know, I’ve never met your mom. If we’re going to do this, we should meet the families, you know? Fly your mom out here, or go out there. Do a Sunday brunch with mine. Though,” he adds, wrinkling his nose and frowning, “my father is an absolute asshole, and I’m not sure I want you to have to deal with him.”

“Do I need to show up in full uniform?”

“Would you?” He has an oddly surprised look on his face, a little taken aback but also grateful. “He’s got a thing - not a thing like _that_ , stop looking at me that way,” he says as she stifles a snicker, “for the military. If you showed up in uniform, it might actually shut him up for five minutes.”

“Oh God, is it genetic?”

“Is what?”

“The not shutting up.”

He looks offended for a moment and then laughs, and she squeezes his hand. They’re a screwed up pair for sure, but maybe his is the right kind to match hers. She leans her head on his shoulder, and he slides his hand out from her grasp and around her.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a dad,” he says quietly into the sound of the waves as the water begins to lap up towards their feet. She makes a soft huff. “What, you’ve had months to figure this out. I’ve had, like, two hours.”

“The denial should settle in soon,” she advises. His only response is to tug her closer.

“How about we head back, shake off the sand, and go out for lunch?” He pauses, looks over at her. “Nah, actually. Takeaway. You’re beat.”

“I’m fine,” she says irritably, and then yawns, and he snorts.

“I can read you like a book by now. Also.” He changes positions again, puts one hand on each of her knees. “If these were covers, I’d really like to get my nose in between the pages.“

“Johnny!” She smacks him in the shoulder, hard, and he looks over at her with a grin. “I’m pregnant. Really?”

“You’re pregnant, not dead,” he points out in a reasonable tone. “And still hot, so yes, really. I mean, hell, I can’t even tell you’re pregnant, so it’s not like anything’s changed.”

“You have no sense of decorum. No sense of appropriate public behavior.”

“I so do,” he counters, sounding for all the world like a teenager, dignity called into question. “I haven’t once proposed sex on the beach, because the sand gets everywhere. Let’s go home, and if we can’t go out for lunch, then I’ll-“ he pauses, and she hopes he can see her glare, “go get something from a place around the corner. What are you in the mood for?”

“I don’t suppose,” she says after a few minutes, “you know a place that does tacos?”

He opens his mouth, tilts his sunglasses down so she can see the gleam of his eyes, and she puts her head in her hands and groans.

“I didn’t even have to say it, and you knew. I love your brain.” He beams, stands up, and reaches a hand down, cautiously, towards her. She grabs ahold of his forearm and stands, dusting sand off herself. He brushes it off himself quickly, and then very diligently turns his attention to her ass and thighs, studiously wiping sand off. “Even here, we do no shoes, no shirt, no service, so I mean you can take your shirt off and be three for three - or you can go back up and I’ll get us food.”

“You’re such a gutter-minded idiot.”

“Hear that, kid? She thinks I’m in the gutter.” Johnny puts a hand on Sonya’s stomach and leans down confidentially. “I need a periscope to see up that far.”

He walks her back to the condo and grabs his wallet, promising to be back in no more than half an hour. She sits on the couch, flicks on the TV to try to find something distracting. He returns with lunch, and they eat and talk and discuss painful logistics - commute times and film schedules, consulting calendars. She thinks he might understand what she means by her workload, now - she pulls up her phone and shows him the blocks of time for the next few months, even with her lighter workload, and he whimpers.

They don’t have anything set in stone yet - but a start, at least. Like custody arrangements but for a relationship - start with the weekends that she has off, while they figure out where they’ll live and how they’ll tackle this. He offers to come up to the base when he’s free, but she points out the lack of anything to do, even for him - and that he can’t lurk in her office forever. He doesn’t have the excuse of Outworld wars to stick his nose into everything. “Plus,” she adds wryly, “like I trust you around a whole bunch of spouses whose partners are off on deployment. You’ll be a disaster unless you have something to keep you busy.” He can’t help but agree, seeming a little chagrined. Dinner too is ordered in, and Sonya realizes about halfway through that this is the longest she’s spent conscious in his company not related to work. Ever. The realization is almost dizzying.

When the sun sinks down below the horizon, he stands up from the couch, reaching a hand out to her.

“C’mon, you look beat. Let’s get you to bed. Then I’ll exhaust you.”

She rolls her eyes, but accedes.

They stumble to bed, and she can’t help but think about the stupid grin on his face. It’s not a last hurrah, or a celebration of survival, but something different and new and more than a little terrifying. She - well, she likes him, likes him enough that she’s made an irrevocable decision to keep part of him in her life forever. And that’s more terrifying than any role in any combat that she’s ever done. Tonight she’s stone-cold sober. There is no alcohol, no excuse, aside from wanting to, and she definitely does.

“We are too good-lucking to be real,” he says with a broad smile, slinging his hands around her from behind. “You sure there’s no chance I can get you to come on set for something, get you to do a role? Just one movie, babe.”

“Over my dead body.”

“So that’s a no,” he says, brushing her hair away from the back of her neck and kissing it. “Something to work on.” His hands tug on the hem of her shirt, sliding his hands up under it. The fabric bunches up in his grasp until she lifts her arms and he pulls it off, tossing it to rest with her hoodie, and her bra follows shortly. She’s suddenly self-conscious, her nipples pebbling rock-hard at the brush of air against them, now hypersensitive and tender. He cups her breasts in his hands, and she can’t help but shudder slightly and her head falls back against him at the touch. “Oh. Oh, I like this. Is this the putty in my hands thing? Because I like this. This is new.” Every little movement on her chest makes her twitch, and she lets out a long breath through her nose, biting down hard on the inside of her lips to keep from whining.

“Increased sensitivity,” she ekes out through closed lips. Behind her, he rocks his hips into her, enough to feel the hard bulge between his legs pressing into her ass.

“I’m good with this.”

She pushes back against him, back towards where she guesses his bed is. He chuckles and kisses the place her neck and shoulder meet, nibbling on it gently. The contact sends more shocks through her and he drops his hands to her hips, pressing her against him until they connect with the edge of the bed. When he falls back, he takes her with him, and they’re a half-dressed tangle of arms and legs, trying hard to get clothes off and stop laughing at how they keep getting in each other’s ways as they try.

She wants this, and it terrifies her, the same way it did the first time she ended up here. She likes him a lot. She wants him in her life. The libido that vanished along with her appetite for most of the past three months has reappeared with a vengeance, for him. Just for him. This is irrational, but rationality doesn’t matter when he’s involved, and she’s never going to figure that out as long as she lives.

Both of them manage to get naked and she’s once again taken aback by how damn good-looking he is, and a very tiny part of her pumps its fist in victory that this is hers if she wants it. What a guy to bring back for a class reunion - Sonya, who never made prom queen, with this in tow. She shoves the thought from her mind, and starts running her hands along his body instead, the bones of his hips and the muscles of his abdomen, the ridiculously Hollywood way his body makes a V from shoulders to hips.

“I have to get back in the ring with you sometime,” he says apropos of nothing, stretched out and propped up on one elbow. “Been too long since we went at it.”

“We could always go at it now.” She sits up and smirks. “Always happy to kick your ass.”

“Don’t want to put either of you,” he says slowly, almost savoring the words, “at risk.”

“I can still kick your ass, even knocked up. Already proved that.”

“Different type of going at it I had in mind right now, anyway.” He grins and sets a hand around her ribs, running his thumb over the curve. She pushes at his shoulder with her fingertips and he falls back with an exaggerated dramatic thud onto the bed, his hand holding tight and tipping her over on top of him. “I’m never going to get tired of this.”

“Tired of what?”

“You.” He weaves his fingers into her hair and cups the back of her skull, and she tips her forehead down against his. “Every damn time it’s a surprise. You go on a date, you invite me to your place, then after… Now you show up, and…”

“Johnny Cage, lost for words? Put it on the calendar.” She half-snorts, and she makes as if to roll away but he wraps his other arm around her and holds her against him. “You don’t know me that well, don’t know the day in and day out bullshit. I’m not nearly as interesting as you think I am.”

“I plan on learning you like the back of my hand.”

“You’ve got the attention span of a goldfish.”

“Not for you.” He grins and kisses her, loose and lazy, and she can feel the last bits of tension dissipate, working their way out in a flex of her toes and a half-sigh. He draws it out of her in a string of kisses and his hands working their way along her skin. Something else builds instead, the pleasure-need he manages to summon up in her every time no matter how annoying he gets. His fingertips graze over her breasts, gently at first as she arches off the bed even at that touch. His eyes light up. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“Fun?”

“Mm-hm.” He flashes a bright smile and shuffles slightly down, hands on either side of her and straddling her hips. She’s nervous, but also curious enough, and she knows him enough to know there’s no good reason to worry. She runs her hands through his hair and cups the back of his head with her hand, and he begins to lick and tease and nibble at the sensitive skin of her breasts. Nipples, areolae, the wider spans all get attention of tongue and fingers, teeth and palms. He makes happy humming sounds, and she can’t decide if it feels good or feels strange. She squirms underneath him, wriggling, and he lifts his head enough to look at her between the valley of her breasts. “You okay?”

“Can you - it’s just a lot. Not so much.” She hooks her heels back, around his legs. “Glad you’re having fun at my expense.”

“Shit, babe, I didn’t-“

“I’m joking,” she says, shifting again. “Today’s just been a lot of off-kilter. I don’t know how much fun and games I’m worth tonight.” She tips up her hips in a way she hopes gets her point across. He seems to get it, then opens his mouth and then closes it. She raises a brow and props herself up on her elbows. “Problem?”

“Just one thing. Whatever happens tonight, for fuck’s sake, Sonya, please be here when I wake up. Even if there’s nuclear armageddon, an Outworld invasion, whatever it is, wake me up before you blow out of here.” He seems oddly, endearingly serious. “Every time you’re gone, or you’re awake and you’ve been up for awhile, and after today, I don’t want to risk waking up and think it was all a major acid trip.”

“How often are you on acid to know?”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“I promise I will wake you up before I leave if I have to leave. I do not promise to keep my ass in bed all day tomorrow if you sleep until noon.”

“Fine. Eleven fifty five at the latest.”

She smacks him in the shoulder and he grins.

“Shut up and fuck me, Johnny, unless you just plan on running your mouth all night instead.” She thinks that maybe he looks possibly more stricken than when she told him she was pregnant, but then it’s overtaken by a look of glee. She lies back on the bed and runs his hands along her sides to her thighs, sits back just a little bit and runs his fingers between her legs, thumb brushing against her clit. She inhales sharply, jabbing her heels into the back of his thighs.

“I could try to do both.” At his words, she glares up at him, and he moves forward, just enough to slip inside her, barely. It’s not enough for either one of them, but it’s enough to tease. “But I’m pretty sure you’d kill me if I did.”

“Not until after you’ve done the paperwork,” she says, and he laughs and plunges himself fully inside her. She lets out a breath held tight in her chest, and it’s a blur from there, the sounds of skin on skin and heavy breathing, desire and pleasure driving her onward. This is stupid, and good. Johnny bends downward and sucks a mark into the curve of one of her breasts, and the sensation makes her cry out, body arching up and her skin on fire. Any other day, any other time, she would have smacked him away, but he can get away with things nobody else can. She resolutely ignores the implication of that in favor of the sex that should be amazing, and would be any other time if she could just turn her brain off for thirty seconds.

His hands are all over her, like he’s comparing her to the last time, to the first time. He rolls her nipples between his fingertips, bends his head to them again, and she hauls his mouth to her face and kisses him deeply to break the stimulus. It’s so much, almost so much it hurts. He shifts up and back a little, finding a different angle for shallower thrusts, sending ripples of new sensation through her. She bites down hard on her lower lip and hears a ragged breath from him in response. She tilts herself again, and there’s a sweet spot she didn’t know existed. It’s hard to keep her eyes open, even with the low light in the room, and she lets them fall closed, the sounds of skin on skin and shared panting breaths taking over.

“I love those noises,” he growls, and she doesn’t know what he’s talking about until her brain registers the breathy moans she has apparently been making. “Just hearing you - fuck, Sonya-“ And his hands are on the insides of her thighs, holding her just _so_ , so every movement rippling through her. She can see the muscles in his shoulders and neck getting tighter, and then he freezes, bottoming out inside her. He pulls back, slides in again, and she can almost see the need coming off of him.

He drops down atop her, careful not to crush her with his weight, kissing her long and lazy. She cards a hand through his messy hair, and wonders if it’s worth complaining about not getting off, but - well, she enjoyed herself, and an orgasm isn’t the be-all, end-all. He mouths at her jaw, tugs on an earlobe with his teeth, and kisses her again. She rocks her hips slowly and watches him shudder, eyes closing against his will, at the stimulation.

“That’s just -“ Johnny breaks off with a grunt. “Unfair.” She only grins, clenching her muscles again, and gets the same reaction. It’s clear reluctance when he pulls out, dropping onto his back beside her, but they’re both sticky with sweat and other things. He reaches overfor her, lacing his fingers together with hers.

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get,” she says after a few moments.

“Well, didn’t-“ Johnny stops, and sits up abruptly. “You didn’t get off. You didn’t do that thing with the squinched-up eyes and the moan and whine and where your toes curl so hard you can’t move.” He looks devastated at the realization. “Shit, babe, I-“

“Relax,” she says, waving a hand. “I’m used to it.”

“Not with me you’re not. No, no, you do not go to bed with Johnny Cage and leave unsatisfied, you’re-“

“Johnny, shut up, okay? I’m fine.” And she’s not really, but that sweet spot is gone, the orgasm she was chasing has disappeared, and the serious look on his face isn’t doing anything for her sex drive. “You can make it up to me later.”

“Tomorrow,” he says, pointing a finger at her. “Tomorrow you’re going to come so hard you can’t walk.” He looks like it’s a personal challenge. “At least twice. I mean… damn it. I don’t keep comment cards around. This doesn’t happen!”

“Promises, promises.” She waves a hand at him. “I enjoyed myself. It’s not a contest. I had fun, you had fun, you got off, I’m good with that.”

“I’m not.” He glares at her, and the irony - the man with his own name tattooed across his chest, insisting that he give her multiple orgasms until she can’t walk - makes her laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“You.” She sits up and brushes her lips across his. “Back in five.” After a long drink, and cleaning up, she reappears to find him still sitting in the bed, looking clearly annoyed. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re supposed to get off. You’re supposed to have amazing sex. I’m supposed to _give_ you amazing sex. It’s not supposed to work like this!”

“I did tell you I’m knocked up,” she points out, sliding under the sheets. “It’s only fair you’re off your game tonight. You can pick up the slack tomorrow.”

“I said once that you’re gonna give me a complex,” he moaned, kissing her shoulder and getting out of the bed. “You’re going to send me to a therapist. Maybe two of them.”

As she falls asleep, she feels Johnny settle himself back behind her, draping a hand over her side, spreading it protectively over her abdomen.

How the mighty have fallen.


	3. Aftermath

The sun is warm on Johnny’s face as he stretches, spine cracking, the next morning. He considers going back to bed until at least noon, but then sits up and looks beside him. Sonya is still asleep beside him, hair spilled out like a pool of sunshine on the bed. Her face is a little scrunched up, like she’s thinking hard in her sleep, and then it eases to a loose relaxed face he’s not sure he’s ever seen before. She is a good enough reason to stay in bed; there’s no assault on the Netherrealm being planned, no early call to get to the set for, no reason to move. She’s here, in his bed. No -  _ their  _ bed, and he’s giddy as a schoolboy to think it. Theirs. The media really will have a field day when they figure out he’s off the market for real, not just the hypotheticals being bandied about. He can’t decide if he wants to be here when she wakes up, or if he should go make her breakfast instead. He lies back down beside her, careful not to touch her, just looking. 

“Creep,” he hears as he watches her eyes flutter open.

“Good morning, sexy.”

“Don’t feel like it.” She puts a hand on her abdomen, looking at it as if she expects something. He is happy to watch her rub the sleep from her eyes, stretch out and bow her body so that joints pop, try to gather her hair back out of her face and fail as it keeps escaping her. 

“Can I get you anything? Need a drink, or…?” He’s not sure what she does in the mornings, except disappear, or be already dressed and drinking coffee. 

“Not to puke,” Sonya says bluntly. “I don’t want to sit up yet. If I do, and I’m not coordinated enough, I will wreck these whatever-hundred thread count sheets. It’s almost done, but I’m not sure.” She squeezes her eyes closed, and her skin takes on an odd color, one the makeup department usually considers a fairly annoying effect especially when it’s supposed to come on fast. He didn’t think it was actually  _ real _ . “Nope.  _ Your _ kid is being an asshole. Back in ten.” She bolts like an Olympic athlete out of the bed and to the bathroom, and he spend the intervening time examining the idea of ‘his kid’ as something not just hypothetical. 

He’s had his fair share of shitty mornings after the nights he’s spent drinking and looking for answers in the bottom of a bottle of pills or occasionally a line of powder from someone in a back room. And this is the weirdest he’s felt so far, any of the trips he’s had. 

Sonya comes back five minutes later smelling like mint mouthwash and looking the worse for wear. She drops back into the bed and grumbles incoherently. He’s seen this look before, once after a bad run with some Netherrealm demons, when half her squad got skewered in front of her and she barely missed it herself. She looked like hell - like a real person - for thirty seconds and then pushed it aside, back where all of the emotions went, and turned Major Blade back on and kicked ass and split people in half with her legs. Still a little bleary-eyed and hair a mess, she looks more real than he’s ever seen her, leaning forward to kiss her temple.

“So, this why you didn’t want me to leave before you woke up? To make sure of… something?” She gives him a sidelong look he can’t quite read.

“Nah. I was pretty serious about the whole acid trip thing. Sexy woman I’ve been after for years, finally lets me go on a date with her, fights an evil villain and his henchmen for me, shows up almost four months later and says she’s pregnant with my baby? That’s an acid trip if it wasn’t real life. Make for a hell of a script, though.” 

“Wait, who was that?” Her voice is tired and confused.

“Woman,” he growls playfully, and she snorts. “You almost had me.”

“I had you dead to rights, and you know it.” She stretches out, toes curling into his shins as she presses herself against him. He lets out a little growl and she wriggles her ass against him. His fingers grip her hip. “Oh, that your morning plan, then?”

“I owe you at least two orgasms, remember? What I said last night?” He pushes back into her, and she makes a soft moan that goes straight to his dick. It’s definitely ready to express its interest. She chuckles and rolls over to face him. “You good for it?”

“You might be able to convince me,” she says. Her agreement is music to his ears and he leans over to give her a kiss. She smells like him and her and the faint musk of last night’s sex still clinging to her. Her eyes are half-lidded already, with pleasure or maybe with lingering exhaustion. “Just don’t make me move too much.”

“I’ll do all the work,” he assures her, kissing her again, brushing his nose against hers. “You just lie back and enjoy.” He works his fingertips along the sides of her, catching on small scars and marks, down along to the rise of her abdomen that seems different than it did the day before. He pauses, comparing angles, and settles for spreading his hand across it and dipping his tongue into her navel. He’s rewarded with a buck of her hips and a husky laugh. “Pretty sure that’s not the same as it was yesterday.”

“You might be right,” she says, reaching down and poking at it with an odd kind of detachment. “We’ll see if my pants still fit right.”

“It’s okay,” he assures her, kissing at the inside of her thigh, “you don’t have to wear pants if you don’t want to. This is a pants-optional home. I mean, usually, it’s clothing optional, but that’s just me.” The appeal of her walking around naked… His dick twitches in agreement. He’d get absolutely nothing done except for her, on every flat surface, and probably some not-so-flat ones.

“That’s definitely just you,” she says dryly, and then sucks in a breath as he drags his mouth down through the springy thatch of curls between her legs, kissing the insides of her thighs. He nibbles gently, inhaling the musky scent of her, the way he can already see her darkening with blood. He fights the urge to get straight to it, and instead works to rile her up, licking and kissing, fingers playing over the folds of skin, the creases of her hips, nosing his way through her curls. The room is quiet, the background noise outside of the city waking up barely filtering through. She makes little sounds, half-tired sighs, and wordless little satisfied sounds. He spares a glance upwards, and her eyes are half-closed.

Definitely the best morning in months. Maybe years.

He would spend all day here, committed to making her go mindless with pleasure. This is hers, and he is hers - she’s said as much - and he wants nothing more than to feel her come apart around his tongue and fingers and dick. He nibbles and kisses at the insides of her thighs, slipping one finger inside of her and crooking it, and feeling her thighs tighten on the sides of his head.

“If you squash my head like a watermelon before I sign the paperwork,” he says, muffled against her thigh, “won’t get you anything.” It earns him a laugh and a slightly looser grip around his head. “Thanks.”

“You appealed to my practical side.” The words are slow like she’s having to dredge them up.

“Yeah, well, I gotta work on making the other side - the really tiny cheerful and fun-loving Sonya side - come out a lot more often.”

“I have fun!”

“Throwing grenades at targets for hours on end does not count as fun.” He looks up at her again. “Speaking of coming more often.” He grins and winks, and then bends his head to the best kind of morning he can think of. 

He’s not sure how long he spends settled there, holding her against his mouth, while she whines and wriggles and writhes. Her breathing picks up and the little noises she makes fill his ears, the taste of her slick on his tongue. Fingers and tongue and the careful application of teeth has her digging her nails into his head, and he hums with satisfaction. He laps at her clit, teasing around and atop the cluster of nerves, fingers playing along her folds and He tries to pull away once and catch his breath, adjust his position, but she keeps her hands - both, he realizes - pressed tight on his head, keeping him in place. He grins, and redoubles his efforts, lapping and working his fingers in time, looking for that just-right spot. 

“Fuck, yes,” he hears her say in a breathy voice, and she whines and rubs herself on his face again, and he hums again, trying to get just the right combination to push her over the edge. He can’t quite find it, and then he feels her entire body go taut, and she cries out wordlessly; not as loud as he’d like, but there’s time to work on that. He keeps working his fingers through her climax, feeling the vice-grip of her body until she goes limp.

He lifts his head up, face streaked with her arousal, and props her head on her pubic bone. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

“Ass.”

“I will never change.” He wiggles his fingers inside her and she jerks suddenly. “Too much?”

“They broke the mold with you,” she says, but sounds more amused than angry, so he takes it as a compliment. He props his arms over her thighs and slides his hands up her sides, keeping his head where it is. “Re-melted it so it could never be made again.”

“Yeah, more than one of me would probably wreck the space-time continuum. But just imagine - Johnny Cage, and Johnny Cage, in-“

“Oh  _ hell _ no.” She reaches for his pillow to throw at him. “More than one of you would be a mess. One of you is  _ more _ than enough.”

“Aww, but baby, imagine-“

“Not your baby,” she snaps.

“You ever going to explain that?”

“Explain what?”

“Why every time I call you baby, you get ready to murder me?”

She considers for a moment, before answering. “No. Not yet, anyway.” He tries to keep the disappointment from his face. There’s another pause, and she sighs. “You look like a kicked puppy. Still not going to tell you.”

“What do I have to do to get you to tell me?”

“Earn my trust for it.” 

“Don’t you trust me already?”

“For some things. But not that. Not yet.” She reaches down, finds his arms and tugs him up to her, and he moves willingly, bending down and kissing her, tasting mint and the slide of her tongue against his. She takes up so much space with her personality he doesn’t remember how small she can be until she’s tucked up here with him. She’s always been big and bold and - well, she’s going to get bigger over the next five or six months, that’s for sure, but here when he can cover her with his body, span his hands across her back and they touch, she seems so terribly small.

“Hey, you.” She nudges him with a knee. “You’re thinking so hard I can see the steam coming out.”

“Sorry, babe.” He stretches out beside her, wraps her in his arms, and then rolls her on top of him. “Thinking of you at the movie premiere, getting you out on the red carpet with me, showing how badass you are off to everyone.” It’s a lie, but then it’s the truth fast enough - he’ll get ahold of some of the big designers, someone’s got to have space, and he’ll fill her a closet with them and jewelry and everything she wants. Getting her in a limo, burying his face between her breasts, watching her verbally trash the paparazzi and anyone who thinks of her as just a pretty face - like he did, not so long ago. 

God, he was an idiot. Still is, maybe, but not where she’s concerned.

“Premieres?” She wrinkles her nose. “You’re - you said you’re still filming something, though.” She drops a hand down, cups his balls in it, and he makes a noise of pleasure and fear. 

“I suddenly feel like the only answer to any question is whatever will make you happiest, so…”

“Don’t tell me I have to put on a dress and go walk some carpet and kiss ass.”

“Never kiss ass,” he says fervently as he feels the slightest touch of nails, and that should not be nearly as arousing as it suddenly is. “Not unless you want to. Mine will be available at all times for that.” She smacks him in the chest and laughs, and he grins back. “What was that for?”

“You are an idiot,” she says, hand moving around the base of his now very erect dick, closing on it there. She rises up on her knees, aligns himself with her, and sinks down slowly onto him. “But you’re my idiot.”

“Yes ma’am,” he shudders and moans as she envelops him, the slick heat and tight grip that makes him arch up into her. If he’s not wrong - and he rarely is, about things like this - that ma’am gets a hint of a grin on her face, the slightest arch of an eyelid. His hands graze across her stomach and up to her breasts again and she tips her head back, hair falling down in a sheet across her back. He tucks his knees up, giving her a little support, and she cracks open one eye and looks down at him. He grins unrepentantly, and then it’s on.

He can’t quite restrain himself, watching her bounce on him, his hands grabbing at those definitely-larger breasts, cupping and massaging and kneading them until he can feel her putting more of her weight on his legs, her motions going hard and fast. She rolls her hips against him and he drops one hand to her hips, the other to a thigh, and isn’t sure which one of them is guiding the motions. Every time she rises up off of him it’s a mixture of the thrill of sensation and the urge to bury himself back in her, back where he belongs. She takes control, a series of motions that only let him settle halfway inside her, and she grins at his sounds of dissatisfaction, of  _ want _ . He tries to tug her down and she fights back, rising up on thighs irrevocably stronger than his hands will ever be, and then drops down until their hips are flush and his groan fills the room.

“You’re a bitch,” he says, and she rises up until just the head of his cock is inside her, and barely. He wants her like he’s never wanted anything more in his life, the pleasure pulsing through him, along his spine and pooling at the base of his cock. She’s so perfectly fucking  _ confident _ in her control. 

“No, this is being a bitch,” she answers with a lethal smile, and the confidence kicks up a notch and he’s sure he’s going to die of want. She moves in tiny increments, just the head of his cock in and out and in and out of her until he can’t take it anymore and tries again to pull her down and seat himself inside her. She is too good at this, too damn beautiful and in control, and he will let her ride him and use him like this. She’s hot and wet and tight around him. But most of all, she’s enjoying herself. 

“Fuck, please, you’re killing me,” he chokes out, pleasure burning its way through his body. She takes one hand and cups her own breast then, and he arches up forcefully. “C’mon, babe-“ And she slides back down on him, and he is so very tempted to roll her over onto her back and fuck her hard and fast, except that’s not the point. This is her morning, and if teasing him is going to get her off, he’s going to let her do it as much as she wants, even though it’s going to kill him. 

She definitely seems to be enjoying herself, if the rippling muscle around his cock is anything to go by. Eventually, her movements slow until she’s more grinding herself against him, hands on either side of his shoulders. “Johnny-” she chokes out and crushes her mouth against his as her body goes hard, her cunt pulsing around him. She’s all muscle clenched tight around him, fluttering squeezing, and he almost can’t move. Almost. He isn’t long behind her, her own release urging his on, and he holds her down hard, bucking up into her. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, blonde hair everywhere.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he groans, still seeing stars. She makes a little happy noise, muted by the press of her lips to his skin. She makes to lift her hips off him, but he holds her down, keeping her atop him. He’s not willing to be two separate people again, not yet. “Still owe you one. Oh no, we’re going to have to do this again.”

“You might be able to convince me. But we’ve got stuff to do today, as nice as this has been.”

“Hold up, hot stuff.” He keeps his hands on her, breathing in the smell of her hair, the sweat-slick salt scent of her body, fingers ghosting across her back and ass. “Give me one afterglow. You’re normally hot on the trail of something, I want to enjoy this.”

She lifts her head up and eyes him, arching one brow. “Really.”

“Let’s see, hot naked woman in my bed who’s just had two mind-blowing orgasms? Yes, I’d like to savor this before she goes all rules and regs on me, scheduling out the rest of my weekend.”

“Ugh,” she grumbles, but it’s not as annoyed as it could be, and maybe there’s a smile there, pulling at her lips. “I need a shower.” 

“I’ll join you.”

“Oh hell no. You’ll try to get laid again.” She shakes her head. “Nope. I can clean myself up, thank you very much.”

“Fine. You go soap up that very sexy body and I will go make breakfast.” He’ll hold out on showering with her for another time - maybe tomorrow morning. She rises up off him and heads back towards the bathroom. He thinks maybe, just maybe, there’s a little wobble in those legs. 

A little wobble and  _ he _ put it there.

Sonya comes out to find pancakes and coffee, and Johnny wandering around with a towel on much like he had the day before. She rolls her eyes and buries a smile in her coffee as he tried to start sorting things in the mess that was his office. It’s good breakfast entertainment, at least, as she tucks into the stack of pancakes.

“Johnny, seriously - you don’t need to start-“

“It’s a start while I’m thinking about it or hire someone to do it and have to supervise. There’s probably a bunch of stuff I don’t need, so… sort it out now. Getting someone in would mean you’ve gotta be on hand, or I do, about what’s worth keeping and I just don’t want to do that right now. But some of it I probably need - like this stuff. I think it’s taxes.”

“You keep your- you know what, never mind. We’re not dating, we’re not married, it’s your business.” She holds up her hands, hooks her feet around the chair legs, and pushes her now-empty plate away. He makes a good breakfast, she’ll give him that. 

“What are we? Not married, not engaged, but - we’ve got to be something, right?” 

“Do we have to do this now?” She sighs, fingers spreading across her belly. 

“We need something for when the press starts asking questions. It’d be easiest if I just called you my girlfriend,” he says, dumping a pile of papers into a bag. “You’re a woman, you’re a friend. Partner works too. Lover’s a little cliche, baby mama is a choice-“

“No way in hell.” She sips from the coffee, wonders if he’s made it weak on purpose. Wouldn’t put it past him to also have just made a shitty cup of coffee. “Let me think about it, at least. This is - shit, Johnny, this is my life here.”

“We can get my PR guy to do it, draft up a statement, come up with some word choices. I’ll put a call into him, too - he’s not far from the lawyer’s, but he can email a statement over or some ideas and we can stop in when we go. Lawyer’s drafting up some things - I put a call in while you were in the shower. Have to deal with royalties and residuals and points and… well, I pay someone to deal with it so I don’t have to. Don’t want there to be any questions. But we need to also talk to my agent, and we need to figure out how we’re handling the PR on this, and you look like you’re about to pass out.” 

“You have too many people. I thought I was telling you, not…” She’s surprised by how pragmatic he’s being, but then again - it’s Cage, it’s the career he’s built. It’s his image and he’s going to do everything he can to preserve it, and if he really does love her - really does want the kid, isn’t just saying that because it sounds like the next lines in the script - it’s not so surprising.

“Half of Hollywood?” He chuckles. “Welcome to my world. Anyway. Lawyer, agent, PR tactics. We can live in here for the rest of the weekend if you want, have the lawyer come here, just do the agent shit over the phone. Lawyer comes here, though, we need a couple of witnesses. I was thinking - maybe once we make some decisions… invite Jax and Vera over? They could do the witness thing if you think he’d do short notice, and could get her to agree.”

“I didn’t think this was going to involve public relations. There’s an entire department for that. Nobody cares. I’m a soldier, Johnny. I’m a good one - but I’m a soldier. Nothing fancy.” She looks into the coffee, wishes it had answers to give her. This is way over her head. 

“Yeah, well, too bad. A lot of people are going to care really soon. I’ll get my agent and the PR people to come up with a strategy for this, and-“

“I do my own fucking strategies,” she snaps, and he holds up his hands defensively. 

“Look, this is out of your field, even. If you’re not interested in marriage, that’s fine, but you’re going to get linked with me in the media more than we already are, and they’re going to make assumptions if we don’t get on it first. Whose name is the kid taking? How are we positioning this so it doesn’t screw up both of our careers? Have you thought about how you want to handle who’s going to get the baby pictures, or what we’re going to do about paparazzi and the kid?”

“I take it back, I’ll do this on my own.” The panic, the realization of what she’s getting into, even if she  _ does _ want to do this, and do this with him, starts to overwhelm her. She breaks off. “Baby pictures? Are they that ruthless?”

“Windows are tinted for a reason, babe.”

“We’re moving onto the base,” she says flatly. “You can keep this place, but I’m keeping the kid on base with me, because no one is going after baby pictures with long-range lenses. The MPs will have them if I don’t get to them first.”

“No murders, please.”

“Justifiable homicide.”

“God, they’re going to wet themselves when they see you coming,” he says happily, walking over to her. “So, my fridge is kind of… empty,” he says, brushing a hand across the nape of her neck. It makes her skin prickle and her nipples go hard again, but she’s damned if she’ll let him know. “I was going to go out and grab some stuff if you’re staying the weekend. Anything you want? Has the whole cravings thing started? Do I need to get pickles and ice cream and limes or something?”

“No,” she says, waving a hand flippantly. “Just get me green things. I have no idea what you do about vegetables, but for the love of God, get vegetables.” 

“I can do that.” He drops a kiss on the top of her head, and then bends over and plants one right on her stomach.

“That’s food, mostly.”

“Mostly doesn’t mean all.” He walks off, and she snags her laptop from its bag, nursing her coffee as she starts in on her inbox, including e-mails to base housing. He comes out, drops another kiss on her head, and heads out. He is gone, but not forgotten - about ten minutes later her phone starts to buzz aggressively with texts, pictures from the grocery store, asking if something is okay or not until she finally sends a five-word response.

_ I don’t care, get whatever.  _

She doesn’t think about what that would mean, instead focusing on getting in touch with base housing, shooting several emails back and forth. There are a few options on base for her to look at when she gets back, and the rep is sending photos along. Her housing allowance is adequate for pretty much anything she would feel comfortable with, and the idea of Johnny Cage living on base is terrifying, but the minute he talked about paparazzi going after baby photos, she made up her mind. She is nonetheless terrified by the idea of sharing anything with him except for a bed over the weekends, so has made sure that whatever is available has two bedrooms and a decent footprint so she can have space away from him.

He comes back in with bags of groceries, arms full of things labeled organic and pesticide-free and free-range, and more adjectives than nouns. She doesn’t want to think about how much he spent and resigns herself to realizing that this is her life, now, because she likes this Hollywood playboy idiot far more than she thought she did. 

“I don’t know,” he says, staring at the bags forlornly, “if I actually have room for all this.”

“Idiot,” she sighs. “But you’re my idiot, so get out of the way and let me play Tetris with your fridge.” She bends over, starts sorting, and pauses. “You’re just staring at my ass, aren’t you?”

The silence is deafening.

“Jesus, Johnny.” But she can’t keep the smile off her face. He’s an idiot, but he’s  _ her _ idiot.


End file.
